North Southwark and Bermondsey was a

parliamentary constituency An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other poli ...

which returned one

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

(MP) to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...

. The constituency was created for the 1997 general election. Minor boundary changes occurred for the 2010 general election; the constituency was renamed Bermondsey and Old Southwark.

Boundaries

The London Borough of Southwark wards of Abbey, Bricklayers, Browning, Burgess, Cathedral, Chaucer, Dockyard, Newington, Riverside, and Rotherhithe. As the name suggests, the seat incorporated large parts of the old

Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey The Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey was a Metropolitan borough in the County of London, created in 1900 by the London Government Act 1899. It was abolished and its area became part of the London Borough of Southwark in 1965. Formation and b ...

and

Metropolitan Borough of Southwark The Metropolitan Borough of Southwark (''Br'' �sʌðɨk was a metropolitan borough in the County of London from 1900 to 1965. It was created to cover the western section of the ancient borough of Southwark and the parish of Newington. In common ...

, within the modern

London Borough of Southwark The London Borough of Southwark ( ) in South London forms part of Inner London and is connected by bridges across the River Thames to the City of London and London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was created in 1965 when three smaller council areas ...

(which is much larger than historic

Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...

). The seat was created in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

and was primarily the successor seat to the old Southwark & Bermondsey constituency which existed from

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...

until

. Before that the core of the seat was the

Bermondsey Bermondsey () is a district in southeast London, part of the London Borough of Southwark, England, southeast of Charing Cross. To the west of Bermondsey lies Southwark, to the east Rotherhithe and Deptford, to the south Walworth and Peckham ...

constituency in which incarnation a notorious

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election ( Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to ...

took place in 1983. For the

2010 United Kingdom general election The 2010 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 6 May 2010, with 45,597,461 registered voters entitled to vote to elect members to the House of Commons. The election took place in 650 constituencies across the United Kingdom und ...

it was replaced by a renamed but barely altered Bermondsey and Old Southwark.

History

For the detailed history of the equivalent constituency prior to 1997, see

Southwark and Bermondsey Southwark and Bermondsey was an inner city constituency in London, United Kingdom. Its sole Member of Parliament was Simon Hughes, in the first stage of his career in the house, as a Liberal then Liberal Democrat after the party's founding in ...

. Southwark North and Bermondsey was unusual for an

Inner London Inner London is the name for the group of London boroughs which form the interior part of Greater London and are surrounded by Outer London. With its origins in the bills of mortality, it became fixed as an area for statistics in 1847 and was ...

constituency in that the area was represented by a

Liberal Democrat Several political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties usually follow a liberal democratic ideology. Active parties Former parties See also *Liberal democracy *Lib ...

(MP) for over twenty-five years. Many commentators felt that this unusual state of affairs was entirely down to the circumstances of the

1983 Bermondsey by-election A by-election was held in the Bermondsey constituency in South London, on 24 February 1983, following the resignation of Labour MP Bob Mellish. Peter Tatchell stood as the candidate for the Labour Party, and Simon Hughes stood for the Libera ...

. Prior to this, the seat had a long history of representation by Labour MPs, but in the early 1980s the local Labour Party was dominated by the far left. The sitting MP

Bob Mellish Robert Joseph Mellish, Baron Mellish, PC (3 March 1913 – 9 May 1998) was a British politician. He was a long-serving Labour Party MP of 36 years, from 1946 to 1982. He served as the Labour Chief Whip from 1969 until 1976, but in his later y ...

was directly opposed to their approach and accepted an invitation to sit on the board directing the regeneration of London Docklands. Bermondsey Constituency Labour Party selected its secretary

Peter Tatchell Peter Gary Tatchell (born 25 January 1952) is a British human rights campaigner, originally from Australia, best known for his work with LGBT social movements. Tatchell was selected as the Labour Party's parliamentary candidate for Bermondsey ...

. A magazine article he had written about direct action was used by a

Social Democrat Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soc ...

MP to embarrass Labour Party leader

Michael Foot Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on ''Tribune'' and the ''Evening Standard''. He co-wrote the 1940 p ...

who impetuously denounced Tatchell and stated that he would not be endorsed, but the party was forced to accept him when Mellish resigned from the

, triggering a by-election widely regarded as one of the dirtiest in history. Tatchell came in for immense local and national vilification and in a shock result the Liberal candidate Simon Hughes established that his party had the best chance of the other candidates, and monopolised the anti-Tatchell vote. Hughes continued to win the seat, at times being the only Liberal Democrat MP in London. The Labour Party had a strong desire to re-take the seat, which was often predicted to change hands on a uniform swing occurring in elections. However Hughes repeatedly defied the national trend and held the seat. On one memorable occasion, during the results of the 1997 general election he was told on air by

Jonathan Dimbleby Jonathan Dimbleby (born 31 July 1944) is a British presenter of current affairs and political radio and television programmes, author and historian. He is the son of Richard Dimbleby and younger brother of television presenter David Dimbleby. ...

that Labour had gained the seat, only for the result to re-elect Hughes with a good majority. In local elections, the

was run by the Liberal Democrats until 2010, with Conservative support as the Lib Dems did not have a majority. Labour won majority control of the council in the May 2010 elections. Following Boundary Commission changes to both sides of the Thames, it altered slightly in shape, but changed its name to Bermondsey and Old Southwark. At the 2015 general election, Labour in the person of

Neil Coyle Neil Alan John Coyle (born 30 December 1978) is a British Independent politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bermondsey and Old Southwark since 2015. He was elected MP as a member of the Labour Party, but was suspende ...

finally re-gained the seat in a shock result, bringing Simon Hughes's 32-year parliamentary career to an abrupt end.

Members of Parliament

The seat's only MP was Simon Hughes, who sat for the various Bermondsey seats since a by-election in 1983 until his defeat in 2015, as a Liberal MP until 1988 and as a Liberal Democrat after that.

Elections

Elections in the 1990s

Elections in the 2000s

External links

Simon Hughes, Liberal Democrat MP for Southwark and Bermondsey

Labour in Southwark

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Southwark North and Bermondsey Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1997 Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 2010 Politics of the London Borough of Southwark Parliamentary constituencies in London (historic) Bermondsey